Unfortunately, however, it proved that there were one or two eventualities of which we had not thought.
23
Lost and Found
Next morning I set off with Clarissa in one car and Harry with Sylvia in the other. We had already surveyed all the valleys for some fifteen miles round our camp so for the first part of our journey we kept together. When we reached fresh territory we planted a pole with a burnous tied to its top on the crest of a ridge to mark the place as a rendezvous, and parted, having agreed to meet there again at four o’clock in the afternoon so as to return to camp in company.
Clarissa was a cheery companion and no misfortune overtook us but our day’s prospecting proved as profitless as the ones that had gone before, and when we met Harry and Sylvia at the rendezvous shortly after four o’clock we learnt that they too had drawn blank.
The following day we set out again, this time changing partners so that Sylvia came with me, and we took a more southerly direction after parting from the others than we had the day before. Yet not a trace of the lost army met our ever-searching eyes as we drove slowly from hill to valley and valley to hill over the never-changing sand.
It was just after lunch that misfortune overtook us. We were skidding half-sideways down a not particularly steep hillside; there was nothing at all unusual about that as this wretched desert driving consisted almost entirely of brief, straight rushes and short, sideways slides; but without warning one of the tyres on the side of the car which was further down the slope seemed to hit something. There was a terrific bump; the car overturned, somersaulted twice and came to rest upside-down in the soft sand of the valley bottom.
The steel roof of the car prevented our being pinned underneath it but we were badly flung about. I got a nasty crack on the head that made me see stars for a moment and when I pulled Sylvia out we found that she had twisted her ankle.
As soon as I had a chance to take stock of the situation I didn’t like the look of things at all. The car was reposing where it had come to rest, roof-downwards and wheels in the air, and I knew at the first glance that on our own we certainly had not the strength to turn it right way up again. We were almost at the limit of our day’s prospecting and had been talking only a few minutes before of turning back; so we were the best part of thirty miles from our camp, and some twelve from the rendezvous where we had stuck up our flag-pole again and arranged to meet Harry and Clarissa at four o’clock. The twelve miles’ tramp back along our track across the sand-dunes would have been an exhausting undertaking but we should have been able to accomplish it before sundown if it hadn’t been for Sylvia’s sprained ankle; that was the real trouble and I knew from the pain it caused her even to hobble that we were stuck.
However, I was not unduly worried as, when we failed to arrive at the rendezvous I knew that Harry and Clarissa would come out to find us; a matter which presented little difficulty as all they had to do was to drive along the tyremarks our car had made. I thought Harry would be able to cover the distance in about three hours, so even if he waited until half-past four before setting out, he ought to reach us sometime about sundown. The journey back would have to be made in darkness so it would be slow going as we should be sunk if we once lost our track and the head-lights would have to be kept constantly on it. That meant it would be early morning before we got back to camp. But apart from missing our dinner and sleep it didn’t look as though we had much to worry about.
Sylvia very gamely insisted that she could walk and although I tried at first to dissuade her I eventually agreed to let her see what she could do as the nearer we could get to the rendezvous the quicker Harry would find us once he set out.
She put up a very good show to start with as she hobbled along with her arm round my shoulders but after a time we had to stop for her to rest with ever increasing frequency. I tried carrying her for a spell but those elegant limbs of hers weighed ever so much more than I had bargained for and wading through soft sand with nine stone of tall young woman hanging round my neck proved no joke. One way and another we covered about a couple of miles and despite my pleadings and her obvious pain she would go on to the very last lap; so I wasn’t at all surprised when she burst into tears on my shoulder and begged me to forgive her because she could not manage another step.
It was already two o’clock and I endeavoured to cheer her up by saying that Harry and Clarissa would be along in a few hours’ time but secretly I wished that she hadn’t been so insistent on making the effort as, had we remained near the car I could have made her much more comfortable with some of the things in it whereas, having abandoned it, we could only sit on the barren sands without even the ease that its shelter would have given us from the sun.
An hour drifted by and then I noticed Sylvia sniffing apprehensively. I knew at once what was causing her to do that as it struck me at the same moment. The air was hotter than it had been although quite a strong wind had suddenly started to get up. The dreaded gibli was coming, and within another couple of moments it was upon us.
Covering our faces with our clothes we lay down huddled together while the sky to southward grew as black as though night were approaching and eddies of sand began to swish into the air all about us.
It was not, thank God, a bad sandstorm as such storms go although we suffered horrible discomfort for the next half-hour; but when it had passed and we were able to see the surrounding country again, all traces of our life-line had been obliterated. The tracks of our car, which Harry must follow if he were to find us, had been completely wiped out.
If the storm had caught him too, as it almost certainly must have done, he might be hours getting back to our rendezvous instead of reaching there at four o’clock, and if he then set out to find us it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to search for two human beings, not knowing the direction they had taken, among those countless waves of sand all looking so similar that they might have been turned out from one machine.
I looked at Sylvia and Sylvia looked at me. We said nothing for the moment, but each of us knew that only a miracle could save us from dying there just as Cambyses’ legions had perished twenty-four hundred years before.
It suddenly struck me with grim, ironic humour that the Fates had decreed for me a death by thirst; it seemed a particularly raw deal, though, that having suffered all the agonies of approaching death that way only a fortnight before in Thothmes III’s tomb, I should be called upon to go through the same ordeal again. As I thought of it I made up my mind that this time I would cheat the Fates, as far as the last hours of torture went, anyway. We would hang on as long as we had a drop of water in the hope that the slender chances of the Belvilles finding us before we died were realised; but, when our water gave out, I would shoot first Sylvia and then myself.
I instinctively put my hand to my belt to feel for my gun and it was only then that I remembered I had given up carrying it a few days before because there did not seem the most remote likelihood of an occasion arising where I might need it, and it was an additional weight which added slightly but persistently to the toil of ploughing about in the sands under the hot sun. Sylvia saw my movement and interpreted it correctly.
‘You left it in the mess-tent,’ she said. ‘I saw it there before we started; but even if you had it I wouldn’t let you shoot me I’m not going out that way.’
‘I hope we’re not going out any way,’ I replied with more conviction than I was feeling. ‘We’ve got our water-bottles and there’s a reserve supply in the car so we ought to be able to hang out all right until the others find us.’
She nodded. ‘I hope you’re right, although I know you don’t believe that. Now our car tracks have been wiped out there’s not the least indication as to where we’ve got to and these wretched dunes are as like each other as the rows of pins in a paper packet. They limit the range of vision, too, so much You know yourself that you can rarely see more than the half-mile from one crest to another. There’s about as much hope of the
ir locating us as there would be of a trawler picking up a rowing-boat in the English Channel with a high sea running.’
‘Don’t let’s take too gloomy a view,’ I pleaded. ‘And if the worst does come to the worst there’s an easier way out than letting thirst or a bullet finish us. I had plenty of time to think of it when I was cooped up in that filthy tomb.’
‘Perhaps, but I’ve told you already that I’m not having any. While there’s life in us there’s always hope; and I’ve got my own reasons for preferring even the most painful death to suicide.’
‘What are they?’ I asked curiously.
‘I don’t believe that any of us are ever called on to suffer more than we can bear,’ she said slowly. ‘And although we should avoid suffering by any normal means we can, we’ve got to take it when it’s thrust upon us, because it’s a kind of test of our spiritual strength; and if we can succeed in passing it we get good marks for it later on.’
‘You mean, in some future life?’
‘Yes. Anybody who’s had to study ancient religions as much as I have must realise that the ancients held much more logical beliefs about the hereafter than those usually accepted in the modern world. It would be so frightfully unfair to judge everybody on just one microscopic span of about sixty-odd years and then award them either a harp and crown or eternal damnation for the countless millions of years which go to make up eternity.’
‘You believe that we have many lives, then?’
‘Yes. Here or elsewhere.’
I knew a little about the purer Buddhism myself and our conversation about the possibilities of what might happen after death became so intriguing that for the next few hours we almost forgot the desperate situation we were in.
Gradually the sun sank down like a fiery ball to the western horizon, the magnificent colourings which we had seen night after night during our journey through the desert again filled the sky. Slowly the afterglow faded and we were wrapped in darkness.
Both of us had water-bottles with us and I had a packet of chocolate in my pocket so we took a modest drink and shared the chocolate between us for our evening meal.
There is a strange fascination in sleeping out in the desert; the utter stillness brings a feeling of complete peace and in the crystal-clear air the myriads of stars twinkle in the heavenly canopy with a brightness hardly believable to those who have only viewed them from the streets of cities.
Our long talk about the possibility of lives to come had fortified us both to a most astonishing degree. There was nothing that we could do to save ourselves and’ for the time being we had accepted the fact quite calmly that it lay on the knees of the gods whether we were rescued or must die there.
Our only discomfort at the moment was the chill that had crept into the air after sundown and the knowledge that it would increase to a bitter cold before morning. With a view to protecting us from it as much as possible I scooped out a shallow trench with my hands about six feet long, eighteen inches wide and a foot deep.
‘There you are,’ I said to Sylvia when I had done, ‘Lie down in that and cover the lower part of your body with the sand. It ought to protect you from the cold a bit, and I’ll dig another for myself near by.’
‘We should be much warmer together,’ she remarked quietly.
I knew she was quite right although I hadn’t liked to suggest it, so I broadened the trench and we lay down in it side by side; then I put my arm round her neck so that she could rest her head on my chest and be more comfortable.
We lay there in silence for a bit and the warmth we gave each other with the sand over our legs was just sufficient to dispel the cold we had been feeling. I was not the least sleepy and lay there on my back studying the patterns of the constellations; but I thought that Sylvia had dropped off, when she moved her head a little and spoke.
‘You know, Julian, when we met that first night out by the Pyramids I thought we were going to have a love-affair.’
‘So did I,’ I agreed. ‘But you had a quaint idea of showing it in the way you treated me when we got back to the Semiramis.’
She laughed softly. ‘Well, you must confess that little trip through the cotton fields was enough to fray any girl’s temper; and of course you couldn’t know then that you had ruined one of my few presentable dresses and that I was much too hard-up to buy another.’
‘You poor dear. That was pretty hard. If only I’d known I would have bought you a dozen.’
‘How lucky you are to have lots of money, Julian.’
‘Surely you don’t need telling that money doesn’t necessarily bring happiness.’
‘It can carry one the devil of a long way towards it.’
‘I suppose that’s true; but no amount of money could ever set me on my feet again, unfortunately.’
‘You are a mystery-man, aren’t you?’
‘Are you tired?’ I asked.
‘Not a little bit. It’s only about half-past eight and I shan’t sleep for hours yet.’
‘Then if it would amuse you I’ll tell you now about my murky past.’
‘I wish you would.’ She wriggled herself down more comfortably beside me. ‘I’ve got all the average female’s allowance of curiosity and you’ve no idea how many hours I’ve spent wondering what the mystery is that you’ve kept hidden so carefully from us all.’
I told her then about my brief career in the Diplomatic Service and its tragic termination. She seemed to think that I was making mountains out of molehills and behaving like an idiot to hide myself under an assumed name. As she said, the whole thing had been appallingly bad luck and nobody could possibly blame me if they knew the full story.
I pointed out that the tragedy of it was, that I couldn’t possibly tell everybody the full story; I could let my personal friends know the truth and any fresh friends that I made but that wouldn’t stop other people who didn’t know the facts believing me to be the worst sort of traitor who had sold his country’s secrets.
‘Just think for a moment,’ I said. ‘How would you like to be the wife of a man who was constantly being cut by all sorts of people and have to face a never-ending situation in which, as soon as you started to make new friends, they heard some beastly rumour about your husband and dropped you like a hot brick?’
‘I shouldn’t mind,’ she said firmly, ‘If I loved him. Two people who really love each other don’t need anybody else, and the few real friends one had would know the truth and continue as friends just the same.’
‘You would make a grand wife, Sylvia,’ I said suddenly.
‘Is that a proposal?’ she laughed.
‘No, my dear. I’m afraid it’s not. In spite of all you say I’m not quite such a blackguard as to contemplate asking any decent girl to share the furtive sort of existence that has been thrust upon me. And anyway, you don’t love me.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you told me yourself only a few days ago that you were still bats about that young excavator you had such a hectic affair with.’
‘That’s quite true. I’d marry him tomorrow if I were safely out of this and we had just enough cash to start a little home together with a reasonable prospect of not having to starve. But there are different sorts of love, aren’t there?’
‘Of course,’ I said slowly.
‘I loved him in every way; mentally and physically. We lived together for nearly three months but I knew with an absolute conviction that when our passion had worn off we should still be immensely happy together. That’s real love and if only we had had the money to get married I should have been absolutely faithful to him. There is the other kind, though; just physical attraction. One knows quite well that it’s not going to last but it can play the very devil with one’s imagination while it does.’
‘You needn’t tell me.’ I smiled. ‘I’ve only just got over the attack I had with Oonas.’
‘You wouldn’t have married her, then, if you hadn’t got your unfortunate past, and she had been just the sam
e but free of her appalling criminal instincts?’
‘Good lord, no! She was a simply marvellous mistress but her crookedness apart, we should have tired of each other in a couple of months at most.’
‘Yes, I know just what you mean. At times like that one’s hardly responsible for one’s actions.’
‘You seem to have been bitten by the same bug yourself sometime or other,’ I remarked.
‘Well, I’m twenty-six, you know, and although I don’t think you could really call me a bad lot, I had rather a rotten break when I was eighteen. I knew next to nothing and the chap was rather a swine. Having once taken the downward path there were two occasions later on when, having really fallen pretty hard, I went off the deep end again of my own free will. It wasn’t real love in either case although, of course, I persuaded myself that it was at the time. I admired them both tremendously too, and I had rather the same sort of feeling for them as I had for you when you pulled me out of that hellish place down at Ismailia.’
It was, I suppose, our acceptance of the virtual certainty that we were going to die out there in the desert that made us talk with such absolute freedom. There seemed no point whatever in observing any sort of conventionality or hiding anything from each other any more. Neither of us was in love with the other in the real sense but we had been strongly attracted from the beginning, and I said thoughtfully:
‘I’m not going to tell you that I regret the Oonas episode because I don’t; but I do feel that both of us have missed something through her coming on the scene. We did make a good start along the old, old road, that night out at Mena and by the time I had got you out of the House of the Angels I had as good as fallen for you. Even if I could have, I’m not saying that it would ever have got to the point where I should have asked you to marry me, because I honestly don’t think we’ve got enough in common to hitch up for life together; but I am quite sure that I shouldn’t have been able to resist making love to you if I hadn’t left Cairo in such a hurry to contact Oonas on the Nile boat.’
The Quest of Julian Day Page 39